Interview with author and scientist Brad Schoenfeld

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Hey, this is Mike. And thanks for stopping by the podcast. In this episode, I am excited to interview Brad Schoenfeld, who is he’s a bestselling author of multiple books. He’s been published in every mag, every fitness magazine you can imagine. He’s appeared in all kinds of TV shows. Probably one of One of the leading experts really in this industry.

And also he has authored numerous [00:04:00] studies. And he’s one of the, one of the, one of the few guys whose work I really follow and whose work I really look up to. Not that I think I’m so amazing or anything. There’s just so much bad stuff in this space. I keep a short list of people whose blogs I follow and who’s who’s ideas I wholeheartedly agree with.

So yeah, I think you’re going to like what Brad has to say. He’s, very educated. He really knows what he’s talking about. He has a ton of experience, so let’s get to it. Thanks a lot for coming on the show. I appreciate it. 

Brad Schoenfeld: My pleasure, Mike. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I’m a fan of your work. Your blog is one of the handful of blogs that I follow regularly and read everything that I, that you put out.

And I am excited to talk to you. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Cool, man. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Alright, so let’s just get right into it. Every day, I spend a fair amount of time answering, people’s emails and social media messages and whatever, and field a lot of different kind of questions. And one of the most common frustrations that I, at least I run into with people emailing me and reaching out to me is just information [00:05:00] overload.

Because, I guess it’s like the, if you want to, regardless of whether you want to, learn a hobby or getting a fitness or whatever, when you first get into pretty much anything, when you start diving into studying it, there’s just so much information out there. And and at least in the case of health and fitness, there are also just so many opinions on what’s the best way to get fit.

And so much of that, sounds convincing on the surface. A lot of different people seem to be well spoken and seem to be educated and know what they’re talking about. In a lot of cases, guys and girls might look the way that, other people would want to look. And can just be hard to judge the relative importance and seniority of everything, 

yup. 

Mike Matthews: So I thought it’d be a good idea to get from you just to help clarify for the listeners. What would you say are the fundamental kind of non negotiable aspects of building muscle and strength and losing fat? What are the bottom line musts and must nots that no amount of fancy diet schemes or training schemes are going to change?

Brad Schoenfeld: [00:06:00] Yeah, that’s a great question. So as far as building muscle. First and foremost is volume. So there is a clear dose response relationship, meaning that when you increase volume, at least up to a certain point, you also see supporting increases in muscle growth and muscle strength. 

So 

Brad Schoenfeld: doing a HIIT style routine where you’re doing one set to failure certainly can produce good results, but you’re not going to maximize your muscle mass.

And this has been demonstrated quite clearly in the literature. As well as anecdotally. And that means that you need to push your volume up to a higher point if you want to maximize gains. Now the problem is that if you consistently train at high volumes, you will tend to get overtrained. At some point, you’re going to get overtrained.

And certainly there’s a U it’s called a U shaped curve. So after a certain point, if you do too much volume, it actually ends up falling off. The results you actually will delve into overtraining [00:07:00] and end up falling off. Like an upside 

Mike Matthews: down U. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Correct, exactly, an upside down U, an inverted U. So the key here really is to periodize volume where you have certain periods of training in somewhat lower volumes.

Doesn’t necessarily have to be one set but somewhat lower volumes. And then you gradually increase that over time, over a given period of time, whatever that is. A couple of months, three months and then have periods of what are called D loads between that where you then take small breaks where you’re training in a much lower volume and lower intensity fashion to allow rejuvenation and this kind of wave like pattern of volume where you’re Going up and down with volume will ultimately maximize your muscle.

And I want to emphasize what we’re talking about here is maximizing muscle mass, or what I’m talking about, because gaining muscle is quite easy. Or up to a certain point. Just, if you lift and you overload your muscles, at least certainly at the initial stages, you’re going to gain a lot of muscle.

Now, I assume you’re talking here [00:08:00] about more intermediate to advanced lifters where it starts to get harder and that’s where you really need to start pushing things. Next would be a variety of exercises. I see people, one of the big mistakes I see people who want to maximize muscle is that they do the same lifts over and over again.

And same basic list and you have to remember that muscles are compartmentalized, they have different heads and if you’re training with the same movements, you’re going to work the muscle in a given way, but you’re not going to maximize stimulation of all the fibers. So we know that an incline press is going to target the clavicular head while a flat press is going to target the sternal head.

The triceps are going to be maximally targeted the long head with an overhead type movement with the medial and lateral heads with a movement where the elbows are close to the side. We can go on and on with this, 

but 

Brad Schoenfeld: varying the movement and you don’t have to get crazy with it. I’m not saying you need to be doing different exercises every day, but there has to be a good variety of movements where you’re working the muscles.

[00:09:00] through proper planes of movement and and inclines and angles 

Mike Matthews: to 

Brad Schoenfeld: maximize their development. Yeah, I found 

Mike Matthews: that having a foundation of the big lifts okay your pull training is going to always going to be built on something like a deadlift or your leg trains can be built on something like a squat or your chest on something like a press, but then changing.

So like certain aspects of the training not changing and that I’m going to be dead lifting. every week. And yes, sometimes it’s going to be heavier than others, depending on volume and such. But then though there are aspects of the workout that change every so often to what you’re saying, to put muscles through to just target them differently.

Is that something that makes sense to you or? 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, there’s many different ways you can ultimately, the practical application of it can be done in multiple different ways, so there’s not a, so I, I can give the science of it, the actual art, which you’re talking about now, can, there’s not one way I would say it has to be done in this fashion, as long as you’re, Injecting some type of variety in that context, you can have, [00:10:00] keep the structural lifts, your core type movements, which I think is a very good strategy, and then have some iso, like isolation, single joint moves that work the muscles differently, many different ways to approach that.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, like assistance work it might be called in some programs. 

Brad Schoenfeld: And the final thing I’d say is to have a trend through a spectrum of repetition ranges, loading zones, that, and I’ve actually through my lab been doing quite a lot of work on this with looking at how different rep ranges affect muscle growth, and the working hypothesis that I’ve come to, and, This certainly seems to play out from my experience in working with a lot of high level physique athletes is that if you train through, you want to have some heavy loading days, even your power lifting three to five rep zones then your eight to 12, your basic hypertrophy zone, and then doing it’s actually been surprising to me, but finding that the higher rep Yes.

promote muscle growth contrary to what has been thought and the working [00:11:00] hypothesis I have now is that it really helps to optimize muscle fiber development across the full spectrum of type 1 and type 2 fibers where The higher reps. So when you’re talking your 2025 reps, significantly high repetition training seems to keep the endurance oriented type one fibers under load for a period of time that will stimulate them to a greater degree than you would with a heavier load.

And your heavier loads tend to bring in the type to the higher threshold motor units. that are associated with the high threat, the fastest type two fibers, and they are not optimally activated, at least through the research I’ve been doing through your low load. So it in combination, they have a synergistic effect.

So really that would be my summation of the hypertrophy aspects. So when it comes to fat loss Really, that’s going to be obviously a function of diet and I have a high, basically I follow what’s called the hierarchy of nutrition [00:12:00] where first and foremost, when you’re talking about losing body fat, it’s cutting calories, it’s watching your energy in versus energy out.

So it can be done through doing more. Exercise, but there’s diminishing returns there 

because you end 

Brad Schoenfeld: up getting over trained. It’s going to end up interfering with with your strength training and certainly have negative effects. So you need to balance that just 

Mike Matthews: To interject real quick.

Sorry. So a listener can just, that’s something you have to think you have to learn with your body. Like I know with my body, when I’m in a calorie deficit, I’m usually when I’m cutting, I’m in a. 20, 25 percent deficit and I can train, I can lift, I can do about six hours of exercise a week.

Basically what it boils down to and so I’m doing about four hours of lifting, maybe six and a half, four to four and a half hours of lifting a week and about two hours of high intensity cardio, no more than two hours. And I know that with my body I can do that and I can lose fat is, easily and I can get lean.

But if I start pushing beyond that, I just don’t feel good anymore. And that’s something, I’ve been, I’ve just, and I’m sure Brad, you’ve seen the same thing. [00:13:00] Some people some people’s bodies are just more resilient than others, it seems like, when it comes to that. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah you, first of all, you just bring up an excellent point that I was going to mention, that certainly there’s a huge inter individual response, and that goes for both exercise as well as nutrition.

And you have to know your own body. So when we talk about these things, we’re talking generalities. But as you mentioned, some people can train long and hard without ever overtraining, or pretty much never overtraining. And that’s gonna, genetics enter into that as well as things like nutrition, whether you’re in a deficit or not sleep patterns, stress patterns.

So there’s so many lifestyle factors combined with genetics. But I, the point here that I want to make at the top of this hierarchy is your energy and energy atom. You just hit a, hit the nail on the head that it’s not, people talk about it’s all about hormones or whatever. And that’s just silliness.

You can’t, you can, your hormones could be going whatever if you’re not having an energy, if you’re in an energy surplus, it’s just basic physics 

Mike Matthews: that 

Brad Schoenfeld: you’re not going to lose body fat. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I don’t know. [00:14:00] It’s, I’ll get sometimes every now and then I’ll get blog comments. I talk about these things extensively on the website and in different contexts and whatever.

But I’ll get people that will, they’ll try to say that, Oh that’s old. That’s old think, now we have all this new research. No, metabolic research goes back a century now. There’s, it’s at a point where there’s no question. It, these are laws of thermodynamics.

This is not just theories. There’s a reason why every single, medical weight loss routine involves calorie restriction, calorie deficit. It’s just how the body works. There is no question. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. And it’s been demonstrated in metabolic ward studies where it’s quite clear that if you’re not in an energy deficit, you will not lose weight.

And if you are, you will. So these, the first law of thermodynamics has been convincingly portrayed in the literature. 

Yeah. 

Brad Schoenfeld: So again, that, that is really at the top of the hierarchy. The next would be protein, which hopefully most of your listeners 

Mike Matthews: To jump in on that last point, something that you might have, just give the reader, before we get on to the next thing, it just occurred to me is that one of the, [00:15:00] one of the things that I think throws people off a lot with calories and with energy balance is that calories in that’s easy to quantify.

If you track everything you put in your mouth, then there you go. And we can get very accurate on that, but the calories out, the energy expended can be trickier to determine. Do you want to talk on that for a minute? Just because I think that’s where it throws a lot of people off, at least when they, because I’ll have people that come to me, I’ll have girls come to me.

Let’s say she’s 130 pounds eating 1900 calories a day, wondering why she’s not losing weight. And I have to explain that’s actually quite a bit of food. Like you’re, if you could be in a good deficit, 1900 calories a day, you’d have to be really physically active. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Why? And your point is extremely well taken.

So it’s very difficult. It’s not impossible if you’re not if you don’t have access to metabolic tools, instrumentation, you’re not going to be able to, it’s basically just going to be an estimate because first of all, with, yeah, you can track your calories in pretty well, but even there’s some variation there.

Calories out. Yeah. Trying to know how much you’re actually expending during [00:16:00] exercise and physical activity is very difficult. Knowing what your metabolic rate is. That is, is impossible unless you’re going to have it measured, and even more so when you start to go into a deficit, your body is going to do something called adaptive thermogenesis, where your body starts to adapt to the weight loss program and is going to start to fight it by suppressing metabolic rate, so you have to remeasure that again, and and your NEAT, what’s called non exercise activity thermogenesis, which is things like fidgeting and how much you move around just without exercise, that often is suppressed as well, that you become more sluggish and you don’t burn calories.

So it’s, there’s a whole very complex aspect to this. So basically you’re just left in the normal everyday I don’t want to scare people away on this, but you’d basically now we’re left to estimate and that if You, it’s very, really an easy thing to do. You weigh yourself. If you see you’re not losing weight, you can have to either expend more energy or cut more calories.

And it just becomes a continual process. It makes it easier if [00:17:00] you’re in a lab and have access. 

Mike Matthews: Sure. Yeah. And then, then also just so the listener knows, again, it’s a point of learning your body. I’ve learned the kind of my, as you could say, quote unquote, sweet spots for losing fat for maintaining.

It also depends how I lean, how lean I want to stay because my maintenance calories are a bit lower if I want to be really lean. But you learn your body is, I know that. If I wanted to be in a slight calorie surplus to bulk, I guess it would be called, I would need to be eating about 30 to 3, 300 calories a day.

That’s in and over time I’d probably have to increase that, but that’s just given my body composition and my activity level, that’s it. And if I want to maintain right now, I’m, I maintain around 8 percent or so. I like to stay lean. So if maintenance for me is probably about. 27, 2800. And if I wanted to get leaner, I’d have to go down to 23, 24.

That’s where I’d start probably. And so it’s part of learning your body. As Brad said, you don’t have to be like, you don’t have to think it’s too complicated. It’s just know that if you’re first go at it, if you’re first, you work it out maybe using the catch McCardle or whatever.

And. [00:18:00] You at first it doesn’t it you know, you’re not seeing the weight loss It doesn’t mean that your body’s broken or that it doesn’t work for on with you or whatever It just means something’s off and you have to relook at what you’re actually eating are you overdoing it on your quote unquote cheat meals or are you overestimating expenditure so It is just a bit.

There is a bit of a learning process. And for some people, there’s no learning process. Some people, they just go, they go by the estimation in their body. They lose all the fat they want. And, good for them. But that’s not everybody. 

Brad Schoenfeld: And you really hit the nail on the head again. That’s you said it as well as I could have said it.

And that it’s a matter of experimentation. You got to get to know your body. And once you do, it becomes a lot easier. So the initial phases of getting used to this is difficult or can be difficult sometimes. So that’s what some people do now. But that’s something that with a little practice pretty much you can know your body after a few months or so and basically have it down for the rest of your life.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, totally. So sorry to cut you off. Back on the protein thing. I just thought it the next thing would be 

Brad Schoenfeld: protein. So we’re [00:19:00] talking about calories in, calories out. It’s not We’re just talking about the loss of weight where we’re not looking at body composition, where that weight’s coming from. And that’s obviously you can lose weight, but you can be losing a lot of muscle, which often happens depending on the dietary approach.

And that’s why protein is extremely important, if nothing else, to prevent the loss of muscle while you’re in a caloric deficit. Generally and your protein needs actually go up even more. depending upon how large the deficit is. So a good rule of thumb is about a gram per pound of body weight. It’s a little higher than you probably need.

But to me, it’s a nice buffer to make sure that you’re getting in the proper amount of protein. And that’s also protein satiating. 

Mike Matthews: It did, when you’re cutting, it helps you, it helps keep you from getting hungry. At least you got that as well. 

Brad Schoenfeld: And we’re talking your goal body weight, by the way.

So if you’re currently. 50 pounds overweight. If you’re 250 and you should be 200, you shouldn’t be basing it at 250. You should be basing it at 200. 

So you’re 

Brad Schoenfeld: really looking at about [00:20:00] your, what’s your goal body weight, your lean body weight would be there. Then comes to the nutritional quality which is again, further down the the hierarchy.

This pyramid I never would say that this, some people just dismiss you can eat anything. And I do think there is an importance to quality and there’s nothing else you’re getting proper nutrients here. If you’re going to be sucking down Mountain Dew all day, you’re not going to be getting your B, all the important vitamins and fiber and other things that you’re going to be miserable because you’re 

Mike Matthews: going to have no calories for food.

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. That’s true too. And then there’s hunger issues as well. The carb to fat ratio would then be underneath that where, again, to me, it’s way overplayed, the ketogenic diet versus the low fat diet. Some people do better on one, again, that’s, this is where inter individual response comes in. I’m not saying it’s not important, but you need to know how your body responds.

Some people are a little more insulin insensitive and do better on the higher fat diet where [00:21:00] others do better on a higher carb diet. There’s actually been a couple of cool research studies that have looked at this and that’s something that you just got to get used to. And it also has to do with the enjoyment as well.

If you’re not going to enjoy it, if it’s completely miserable to be on that diet, you’re not going to stick with it. And adherence is obviously paramount, the most important thing. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people forget that too. They think that because low carb is trendy these days and generally, I’m not a fan unless you said, unless the person is, has good reason to do it.

When you, as when protein is when you’re looking at a high protein diet over time, the fat loss is negligible. It’s not really different between low carb and high carb. So if you’re, and if you’re lifting regularly heavy weights, Low carb sucks. There’s no one has a good word.

No one has a good heavy weightlifting workout on a low carb diet that I’ve ever run into. I don’t know if people that 

Brad Schoenfeld: I agree. I think now I think generally speaking, it is a performance detriment to be on a low carb diet. Although I do have a colleague that I’m waiting for the data to come out that he just [00:22:00] conducted a study showing pretty much equal results on a muscle building on a ketogenic versus a I’ve 

Mike Matthews: heard it.

Yeah, I actually I heard it. I think I saw a preview of this. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah I’m waiting to see the data. And again, I always reserve judgment. I’m always willing to change my opinion, but look again, it does come down to, then you have to say what’s more important, the fat loss or the muscle gain. And these are things I can’t, it’s up to the individual.

You have to make your own decisions there, but I just think it’s way overblown as far as importance goes. That’s more of the point here. And the final thing would be the timing of nutrients. I actually just conducted a meta analysis. of eating frequency, how many meals a day you should eat, and the old advice, bodybuilding advice that you need to really jack up your metabolism by eating six times a day.

We pretty much refuted that, where there was no difference based on the timing of fat loss. I would say, generally, you need a minimum of three meals a day for anabolism to maximize muscle growth or to keep your an, anabolic system [00:23:00] revved up. To optimize protein synthesis, but other than that whether you’re having three meals, four meals, five meals, really very little of no difference between meal frequency.

And even we’ve debunked, we also had a paper from my lab that came out not too long ago on post exercise timing of nutrients. And we found that there’s not much credence, certainly it’s not going to get the old adage again, that you get jacked from taking a protein dose immediately, you have to suck down your protein drink within 20 minutes of your workout, you’re going to go catabolic, really is quite silly and whether it, if it does have any effects, the They would be pretty small and we’re still not even sure they do.

So 

Mike Matthews: yeah, that’s one of those things. Personally, I just have usually have some protein after just in case. And I’m the same way, by the way, that 

Brad Schoenfeld: I still get when I get home, but I’m not like racing 

Mike Matthews: to get my way shakedown, I’m going to come to the office and I’m going to, and I’m going to make a shake cause it’s [00:24:00] convenient and I need, I want to get to work.

And so there we go. 

Brad Schoenfeld: So it’s so again, what I just said was, is that, or hopefully I did what I’m hoping that it came across. That it’s a hierarchy here and that some people are some people put more credence in others. You have to look at what’s important to you and focus.

Sometimes people don’t see the forest from the trees. They’re focusing on their timing or whatever, and they don’t focus on the galleries, which is the most important. You want to focus on your most important things. It’s not that the other things have no value at all. But you just need to focus on them less.

You have to focus on what’s most important for the most part. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And in these days, it’s obviously very popular to focus on the nutritional quality, that part of the hierarchy. That’s what a lot of the, the mainstream kind of diet quote unquote gurus push these days of. These are the foods that quote unquote clog your hormones and make you gain fat.

And these are the ones, all that stuff. And going back to that point because then on the other hand, we have the, if it fits your macros thing, that’s big in the fitness world [00:25:00] specifically. And a lot of guys they look at that as a license, as you were saying to just eat whatever okay, I’m going to have six bowls of Apple Jacks and my carbs are going to be Apple Jacks, pop tarts and 

Brad Schoenfeld: yeah.

Mike Matthews: What are your, my, what’s your take on in if, cause a lot of people are like afraid of certain things, like they are afraid of sugar and they think it’s going to make them fat. Obviously, we know that’s not true. But in terms of breaking down, let’s say, calories from nutritious foods, and that means nutrient dense foods, not necessarily foods that.

Okay, whole grains are, demonized by certain diet cults, I guess you could say, and then what, where, but whole grains are great sources of certain nutrition. So nutritious foods, how much, how, in terms of total daily calorie intake, what would you say is a good breakdown to go, okay, if you get this amount of your calories can come from, generally unprocessed, nutritious foods that you’re going to prepare yourself.

And that’s where you’re going to get a lot of your micronutrients and blah, blah, blah. And then if you want to throw in some random, whatever junk, I’m not into junk food personally, [00:26:00] but my stuff would be more like, I like I like chocolate or I do a little dessert every day of some kind. What’s your take on that?

Like what’s a good balance where you get to still enjoy some stuff, but you’re, you have a, an all around healthy diet. You know what I mean? 

Brad Schoenfeld: Great question, I defer one of my real good friends and colleagues, Alan Aragon, who actually has a new book out called The Lean Muscle Diet, and he touches on this, and I subscribe fully to his opinion that it’s an 80, the 80 percent rule, if you’re eating good 80 percent of the time, that other 20 percent can be used pretty much as yeah.

for whatever you want. And the old if it fits your macros concept was not based on eating pop tarts all day. It’s been bastardized for that to come to that. But ultimately it just meant that you didn’t have to worry if you wanted to have pop tarts once in a while. And then it got.

Again, bastardized to the point where it said you can eat whatever you want as long as you’re, yeah. And you have to remember, there’s many, you even touched on it before, there’s things like hunger [00:27:00] issues, if you’re just going to eat Pop Tarts and Apple Jacks all day, you’re going to be Chomp it at the bit to have more food because it’s just not satiating.

And of course the quality, there’s protein quality. Now, again, I’m not one to say that you have to have way pro like that protein quality needs to be focused on above all. But there is a, there is credence to the fact that certain proteins are higher quality. If you’re going to just eat, let’s say a soy protein, if you can have to have a lot more of it to compensate for the lack of quality.

So 

Brad Schoenfeld: anyway, there’s other issues there that I don’t know how much you want to get into them, but really, to me, the relevance is, and I think the more practical aspect, take home for most people that would be listening, is that if you eat well, 80 percent of the time, as far as the foods, whole foods, unprocessed, that the, you can have.

20 percent to do pretty much whatever you want. As long as you’re staying within your if it fits your macros and the macros, again, the macros are specific to the individual [00:28:00] and also above all the total calories that you should be consuming. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. In the end, obviously the, it’s the keg, it goes back to that top of the pyramid you’re talking about, which is the energy balance is just Tracking macros just for the listeners is it is a from it’s really once you work it out It’s just an easier way.

It’s less to think about than calories because if okay I know that if I were going to be cutting right now, I’d probably start with 200 protein 250 fat a day That’s why it’s where I’d start and that’s easy to think with. I can now make a meal plan with that as opposed to 2, 500 calories.

It’s just a tracking macros is just a shortcut. But you got to, of course, the calories in the end, you can track all the numbers you want. But if if you’re overeating and that’s just it. 

Brad Schoenfeld: And then by the way, again, the most important thing to track is your protein intake, 

right?

Brad Schoenfeld: If you’re off on your. Yes. And carbs, for most people, it’s just not going to make, within reason, it’s not going to make much difference at all. 

Mike Matthews: Definitely. 

Brad Schoenfeld: And you want your, I should mention too, with fats, you need to get your essential fats. It’s not the types [00:29:00] of fats that you’re eating are very important there.

You want your, especially your omega threes, but both six is also important too. If you want to have a compliment, you don’t make a six is a pretty rich in the American diet. Many people are deficient in their omega threes. So it’s it is a very important thing to make sure that you do get at least, say, if you’re taking a couple of fish oil caps a day, then you don’t have to worry about that.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s a good point. I’m not a big fan of fish, so I tend to just supplement just because, especially the fattier fishes, they just, I don’t really taste, so I choose the supplement. Yeah, that’s awesome. That, that, that’s a very great, I like the the way of thinking of it in terms of a pyramid like that.

That’s great. So let’s move on to the next subject here. That is quote unquote, functional training, very popular these days, CrossFit’s big, and a lot of people are obviously going in that direction. And I’ll get people that, that write me here and there that they’re asking about how they can make their workouts more functional because a lot of the workouts that I’m recommending are built around your basic big compound exercises with some assistance work [00:30:00] and in, in terms of workouts for advanced lifters, periodization and deloading and so forth.

But I know that you have some thoughts on this on what is quote unquote functional training anyway? And is it, is the traditional bodybuilding approach, quote, like unfunctional? 

Brad Schoenfeld: It’s a, again, this is one of my hobby horses and it’s really a great question. And it is the term functional fitness, by the way, is there’s no.

Definition for it. If you ask 10 people, they’ll have different definitions. And if you want to just talk about it is the ability, which you’re talking about for the general population for which to me is the ability to carry out everyday tasks. 

So 

Brad Schoenfeld: the activities of daily living that to me is functional.

A bodybuilding routine. Show me a bodybuilder that can’t lift packages, pick up a child go to the train station and sit down on the toilet and stand 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. It’s just silly that a bodybuilding workout, number one, as you mentioned virtually all of them will employ [00:31:00] squats and rows and all the free weight type moves that would be done in three dimensional space that would.

Get stabilizer muscles involved. And the thought that like a body, it goes, the thinking is, the bodybuilders, they’re so muscle down, they can’t scratch head well. Number one, that comes from taking professionals, from taking a lot of anabolic enhancements, for lack of a better term. 

Mike Matthews: And a lot of time and outstanding genetics for it as well.

Brad Schoenfeld: But even without that, they’re not going to, so if they can’t scratch their head, it’s because their biceps are 25 inches. If they were not on what they’re on the gear that they’re on, they’d be able to scratch their head. Again, they choose to 

not scratch their heads. They work hard so they cannot scratch their heads.

Brad Schoenfeld: It’s the bulk getting in the way. It’s not the training per se. The average person who’s training is not going to get anywhere near that. And we wish it was that easy to build that much muscle in the natural state. So again, that doesn’t happen. And bodybuilding is a very functional training style, if it’s [00:32:00] done in the way most people do, using a cup on a fridge, but even if it’s not, even if you’re just using machines, I hearken back, so this kind of depends upon the, certainly would depend somewhat on the individuals that you’re looking at, but the classic study that looked at nursing home patients just using the leg leg extension.

Now, I can’t think of any exercise that would have less functional relevance than a leg extension. 

Okay. 

Brad Schoenfeld: After eight weeks, a group of nursing home patients in this study was done back in 1990, three days a week, three sets per session of leg extensions. After eight weeks, they improved their functional capacity by 50 percent strength by leg strength by 150 percent and two of the 10 subjects were able to walk without their canes after.

After this eight week protocol. Now you tell me what’s more functional than being able to walk on your own without assistance. So it’s really just silliness that’s been taken to an extreme. Now, I also want to point out that if you’re an athlete, if you’re looking to maximize [00:33:00] performance, where the differences between so the functional transfer there is much more specific than obviously a bodybuilding routine, Principle of specificity would state that a bodybuilding routine would not optimize that performance.

So it really then starts becoming who are you looking, who are you talking about as far as the functional transfer? What are they looking to do? There certainly can be people with certain job tasks. That would benefit from certain types of moves put in that are specific to their work environment or things they do, mountain climbing, whatever they might want to do as a hobby.

And those are things that would have to be accounted for. But just on a general level, I would challenge anyone to show that a bodybuilding routine is not going to allow them to carry out their everyday tasks in a very efficient manner. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s a great way of putting it and I totally agree.

And while we’re on the subject of functional training let’s quickly talk about CrossFit. What’s your take? 

Brad Schoenfeld: I, again, don’t have a problem with CrossFit per se, for what it [00:34:00] is. If you’re looking to be a jack of all trades, it’s not going to maximize it. You can’t, if you want to maximize something, you have to train specifically for that.

So the thought that you’re going to maximize hypertrophy and maximize strength and maximize muscular endurance it doesn’t happen. 

You 

Brad Schoenfeld: can’t maximize everything in one type of routine. So it’s a jack of all trades routine that I think has relevance for those who want an overall fitness good fitness routine.

I think the implementation is not done well in many of the centers. Now, with that said, I don’t. Do CrossFit. I’ve just spoken to people and I’ve tested some people who are CrossFitters and they often will have strength imbalances because they’re not training through a full spectrum of planes with movements in all the planes.

There’s certainly from what I’ve gathered an increased incidence of injury. And does that mean it has to be that way? No, that’s just the way that many of these facilities are carrying it out. And that I think a lot of the people who are owning CrossFit boxes are really not fitness people and they do a two, two day course and come out thinking that [00:35:00] they’re, yeah, they come out thinking that they’re now exercise physiologists and they really don’t have a grasp of how not only to train safely, but also to manipulate intensity.

We talked about deloading, that they, it’s push yourself without ever coming down and that’s usually a recipe for overtraining and disaster ultimately. Again, can CRUFSIT be a viable strategy? I think it can, if it’s carried out properly. So it’s, really then comes to the implementation, not the concept.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, and it’s unfortunate that It is so easy. Like you say, you take a weekend course because Olympic lifting is inherently, it’s not that it’s inherently dangerous, but the injury rates are inherently are higher with Olympic lifting than just your traditional bodybuilding routine, because the movements are trickier, especially you start adding weight even when you know what you’re doing, you’re at an, you’re increasing the risk of injury, not that you shouldn’t do it, but you just, it’s just part of the game.

It just comes with it. When you have a bunch of people that, especially people that are, yeah, [00:36:00] I don’t think starting them out on ramping them up to heavy Olympic lifts is the way to start somebody with weightlifting. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Absolutely. That’s a great point that even high level Olympic coaches who have basically got got master’s degrees in exercise physiology.

There still is A higher incidence of injury in those in that type of sport than there is in the general resistance training population just because of the complexity of the moves and the speed of the move that’s being carried out. And that’s done with, that’s being carried out in people or under the supervision of people who are very experienced.

So when you’re not so much experienced, a two day course doesn’t exactly qualify for someone who has their master’s degree that’s gone through six years of schooling. And understanding biomechanics and X phase and other things. So yeah, great point. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. Okay. Last and not least, a random question, but I get asked it fairly often.

So I want to get your take on it. How long can you go without training for you start losing muscle? So let’s say you’re going to be on, you got, you’re out of [00:37:00] town or you get in, you get hurt or for whatever reason. Cause a lot of people will write me and they’ll be paranoid that, if they miss a workout for a week, are they going to lose them?

Are they going to lose muscle two weeks or they’ll come back after a couple of weeks and they’re significantly weaker. And then they’re freaked out that they lost a bunch of muscle. Cool. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, so there’s no I can’t give you an exact point because it will be different for, number one, we talked about before, inter individual differences, but it’s also going to depend upon how long have you been training for the, how intensely have you been training, how much muscle do you have.

Many things come into this. What I can tell you without, Question is that when you start losing strength before you lose muscle mass, so strength actually, the neural aspects deteriorate a little more quickly, a week you will not lose anything, two weeks you will start to lose some strength usually a little more than that before muscle starts being lost, but again it’s quite minimal significant muscle loss doesn’t happen until you’ve been out certainly over a month.

When you’ll start to see appreciable for most people appreciable muscle loss, 

Mike Matthews: right? And then on top, and then [00:38:00] if you get back, you have muscle memory on your side, which is very real. So it’s that’s my normal thing is don’t worry, you’re gonna miss a couple of weeks.

It’s not a big deal. You’re not going to lose anything. You’re going to come back a little bit weaker. And if you did lose any muscle, because maybe for whatever reason, you’re going to gain it back very quickly. 

Brad Schoenfeld: And not only that, some people need, it depends how hard you’ve been training, but that can actually foster increased growth.

So you might lose a little at the beginning, but not only would you gain it back, some people will then actually be able to go past the plateau they might’ve hit because they’d been over trained. Usually the people that are worried about that are the ones that are just pushing balls to the wall every time they’re training, and they’re the ones who need it.

Often that extra D load. So if they take a couple of weeks off, certainly three, three is certainly not going to hurt them and possibly can end up benefiting them down the road. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had that before. Just like you say, pushing hard to where I just, you start getting your workouts.

Start going to shit and just tired and not having the strength and not wanting to be there [00:39:00] and then take a week or two off and then come back totally refreshed and break through whatever I was stuck with. Okay, awesome. So now let’s change gears here real quick and tell me about you have a book that’s been out for a couple years and I know it’s sold well and I’ve run across a lot of people have read it and tell us about it.

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, it’s called the Max Muscle Plan. It’s a six month periodized program that takes a person through on a step by step basis, how to maximize their muscle, and it discusses not only the program itself, but teaches people how to customize it to their own abilities, needs and abilities. We talked about that’s really important.

So it’s called the Max Muscle Plan published by Human Kinetics and that is out in all major bookstores as well as on Amazon. I also have a popular website called lookgreatnaked. com where I run a blog and have a free newsletter and give out free advice and free articles, discuss my research a lot, so check that out as well.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And I highly recommend you [00:40:00] check out Brad’s stuff. Like I said he’s one of probably six or seven blogs that I check regularly just because I’m always looking for just trying to stay on top of the research side of things. And Brad knows a lot more than I do. So I just defer to people smarter than me.

And so I recommend that you add his blog to your feedly or whatever you use. And I haven’t read your book, Brad, but I, like I said, I’ve seen it on Amazon, and I’ve had people, I’ve come across it, so I need to add it to get 

Brad Schoenfeld: you a copy. I’ll have to let my publisher know, and we’ll talk after, but I’ll get you get you out a copy.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, no problem. I’ll buy it, because, I don’t know, I like that, so I’ll, I’m gonna add it to my list. I have my reading list is like on a rotation of, I’ll read a health and fitness book, and then I’ll read a business type of book and blah, blah, blah. So I’m gonna add it to that list.

Yeah. Okay thanks a lot for taking the time, Brad. I really appreciate it. I know we covered a lot of great stuff. I think think listeners are gonna appreciate it. And yeah. So thanks again. 

Brad Schoenfeld: My pleasure, but hopefully we’ll talk down the road. 

Mike Matthews: Definitely. Hey, it’s Mike [00:41:00] again, and I hope you liked the interview.

Before I sign off, I just wanted to take a second to basically plug my book launch that I have going. You may have heard about it, but I recently released the revised and expanded second editions of my books. Bigger, leaner, stronger, which is for men and thinner, leaner, stronger, which is for women. And I have a whole giveaway that I’m doing.

I’m giving away over 10, 000 of stuff and that’s real stuff that has real value. Not like 10, 000 in shitty PDFs or something like that. Like we actually spent my, one of the guys that works with me. He spent months contacting companies and gathering up all kinds of stuff. If you want to check it out, you can get the books and get all kinds of bonus cool things for buying the books while we’re doing this book launch.

And then you also enter to win, big prizes or big giveaway packages. You can learn more at muscleforlife. com Just spelled out muscleforlife. com forward slash launch. Yeah, [00:42:00] check it out. I think you’re going to like it.